Blog - Inventionland Education

Most teachers don’t want to take a day off from school during those precious first few months of classes. You’re getting to know your students, setting expectations, and creating a feeling of normalcy so when your students walk in your classroom, they always know what to expect.

What is it about parent-teacher conferences that makes parent nervous? Is it our past coming back to haunt us? Maybe it’s the idea of having to sit at a desk again? Or Maybe it’s that we know that our child is frighteningly similar to ourselves and hasn’t quite finished every homework assignment and “maybe” doesn’t always follow instructions. But regardless of the reason, most parents put their guards up before they even set foot in the classroom for a parent-teacher conference.  

To say classrooms have evolved over the past 30 years is an understatement. Thirty years ago, a teacher was considered innovative and thinking out of the box if she signed up for one of the televisions stored in the library, carefully rolled it on the cart down the hall, and brought in a VHS clip for her students to see how what she was teaching in class connected to the world around them.  Maybe it was a clip from The Wonder Years or an especially sentimental McDonald’s commercial.  The content didn’t matter–the students loved her for making the pop culture connection. She may have even been considered edgy because she showed a clip of a movie that was PG-13 or (gasp!) had dialogue that included “bad” words.

Based on the thousands of social media posts on our newsfeeds…school is officially back in session. Sure, kids are dressed to the nines and have shiny new notebooks and freshly sharpened pencils to mark the occasion, but they also still have…summer energy.

It’s a picture we’ve seen all too often: an elementary school student slumped over at his desk, bored and restless, his face barely supported in his hands. He is trying not to fall asleep as his teacher drills content about basic anatomy: the heart is here, the lungs are here, the kidneys are here…The teacher gives the class a worksheet asking them to fill in which body parts go where. It’s due at the end of the period and the only way to measure whether the students have learned anything is based on this worksheet and the inevitable unit test.

It’s that time of year! The school buses are pulling in and students are beginning to fill the hallways of your school. As they approach your classroom, here’s a good question for you: Will they feel comfortable as soon as they step in?

Here at Inventionland, we’re big fans of creative environments. We’re pretty sure the castle, pirate ship, tree house, and raceway gave that away!